Waste shipping gets green light

Exporters of meat and bone meal waste shipping cargoes from the European Union (EU) to non-EU power incinerators do not have to make special declarations to environmental authorities, a European Court of Justice advocate general has recommended.

Juliane Kokott has said this is the case even if the animal waste was contaminated by BSE: "...contamination by risk material, if... incinerated, does not lead to any apparent increased risk to the environment."

The case focused in the shipping of 1,111t of uncontaminated meat-and-bone from Germany to a power station in Bulgaria, where its incineration would produce more heat and electricity than brown coal.

The cargo was blocked on the Danube by Serbia authorities, and returned to Germany via Austria, where there was a row over whether it should have been declared under EU regulation EEC/259/93 on the supervision and control of shipments of waste. The full ECJ usually adopts the recommendations of its advocate generals.

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